Online Marketing Blog

Matt Cutts of Google has posted some videos of himself answering reader mail on different topics related to SEO:

• Session 1: Including qualities of a good site.
• Session 2: Including some SEO Myths.
• Session 3: Should you Optimize for Search Engines or for Users?

Seeing someone explain a thing is a much different experience than reading about it, especially for people just learning about search engine optimization.

A little over a week ago, Matt made a post about what direction to take his blog. There were a huge number of responses and I tossed one in:

Marketing Sherpa released findings of a Technology Marketing survey that include blogs and podcasts as two of the top 5 lead generation tactics for technology, hardware and software firms. Overall, the top 5 lead generation tactics were:

1. Free Trials
2. Webcast
3. White paper
4. Blog
5. Podcast

Google Blogscoped has shared a very interesting screenshot from the work of Tony Ruscoe research on potential new services from Google including:

• Google Events
• Google Guess
• Google Real Estate Search
• Mobile Marketplace
• New Service aka Workplace
• Google Weaver aka M Scrapbook
• Google RS2: linked to Google Translate
• Google Online Assessment

Could it be that Google was sloppy about giving access to this or was it left open as some kind of PR stunt?¬† Read all about it at: “Lots of New Secret Google Services Uncovered“.¬† If you have any information or insight on any of these services, drop me a note!

Some interesting info from Yahoo recently including an updated “Weather Report” announcing that a new and improved (Slurp) is in action. So now Yahoo has a new look and feel and a new and improved spider. I don’t use Yahoo much more than I used to, maybe a little more. Old habits are hard to break. I was checking my Yahoo account and see that I’m coming up on my 10 year anniversary. Long live Yahoo.
Yahoo Search Blog posted about a modification of the very useful Yahoo Site Explorer tool that Yahoo Korea put out called Webzari, a visual representation of your link neighborhood. It’s only in Korean now, but hopefully Yahoo will publish versions in other languages or at least English.¬† Here’s the Online Marketing Blog link universe. (via Barry)
You know what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words, right? Personally, I like graphic representations like Webzari. Some other cool visual search tools you might like include: The Google related tool over at Touchgraph, that slick new tool at Digg labs called Swarm or trusty visual search engine Kartoo.

Wired recently ran another “How To” with this one including sage advice from Technorati founder, Dave Sifry on how to make your blog more popular:

1) React quickly. (Nothing is more fun than calling an A lister on hype or fluff)
2) Make your posts easy to read. (Usability never goes out of style)
3) Link, link, link! (Amen - link in and link out)
4) Optimize for search engines. (Get some tasty blog optimization)
5) Post, post, post! (Yes and no - It’s just not always practical to post 5 - 10 times a day)
There are also several tips on sprucing up your MySpace site, Amazon Picks and reblogging. Check it out.

Here’s an example of what happens when your site or blog gets indexed by a search engine when things aren’t working quite right. A search on Yahoo for “SEO Blog” shows Google’s Matt Cutts at number one. Great, but take a look at the title and snippet of text.

The same search on Google shows Matt’s blog at number one as well, with the title and snippet as it should be:

After comparing search results between Yahoo and Google, I wish Yahoo would add the date a site was last indexed and I wish Google would add the “Also try” search phrases at the top like Yahoo does.

Day two of ad:tech Chicago rounded up with a sigh. With all the parties Monday night, I think some of the attendees were looking forward to the end of the day. Lots of good sessions and a few duds, but that’s the way it goes with most conferences. Luckily, the two sessions I covered went pretty well. There were quite a few folks covering the conference so I’ve assembled a list of all search marketing and related posts below:

Coverage by the ad:tech blog:

This session, “Waiting for Your Cat to Bark - Persuasion Architecture - Persuading Customers When they Ignore Marketing” with Bryan Eisenberg of Future Now is titled after the book of the same name. Basically this session was about marketers getting poor results because they are using old Pavolovian rules of marketing and that consumers buy differently than in the past. Customers are less like compliant dogs and more like finicky cats. Hence the title.

ad:tech Chicago is coming along nicely. Coverage of the conference by Online Marketing Blog as well as DMNews and iMedia Connection is keeping those who were not able to attend well informed. Here’s the next installement of our coverage:
Any discussion about social media and social networking is going to involve MySpace. This session did exactly that with some aspect of MySpace being included in just about every speaker’s contribution to the session.

Rather than a presentation format, moderator David Carlick of Vantage Point Venture Partners introduces “Social Media: The Dynamics of the Genre and the Opportunities for Marketers” as a Q and A session.

The first day here at ad:tech Chicago was pretty good. I covered 3 sessions over at Online Marketing Blog and at the ad:tech blog.

Link Building
Big Brands and Podcasting
Warm and Cozy SEO

Also, Carlen Lea Lesser covered: “Managing Ultra-Complex Search Campaigns”

In the morning I had the chance to briefly meet keynote speaker, Fay Ferguson and chat a bit with fellow ad:tech blogger David Berkowitz of 360i and contributor to Media Post Search Insider. I also had a most enjoyable conversation with Mickey Alam Kahn, Senior Editor of DMNews.

Our next installment of ongoing ad:tech Chicago 2006 coverage provided by Online Marketing Blog focuses on link building.

This SEO related session was two thirds full, which dispells my earlier suggestion that interest in SEO might be slipping here at ad:tech. What was to be a rounded topic of on-page and off-page optimization turned out to be focused on linking as one of the presenters was not able to attend.

Here is the next installment of Online Marketing Blog coverage of ad:tech Chicago 2006:

With a slight delay, this standing room only session started off with Moderator Henry Copeland of blogads.com introducing the speakers which included: Michael Moore of Nestle Purina Pet Care, Robert Claypoole “Consumer and Professional Relationship Marketing” for Johnson and Johnson Vision Care division, Heather Sefcik of Henkel Consumer Adhesives (Duck Tape) and Brian Bloom of Ligget Stashower, a marketing PR firm that works with the Duck Tape brand.